The tell, p.14
The Tell, page 14
‘Cop,’ I whisper urgently. ‘Let’s go.’
Because of the MCT stuff, we’re used to getting gone as soon as potential trouble is spotted so we’re on the move almost before I’ve finished speaking. The maybe-cop watches us go, but doesn’t stop feeding fries into his mouth.
We hurry away from Maccas, keen to put some distance in in case the guy was a cop and he realises why I looked familiar. As we head towards Bronte Street we pass one of our best MCT pieces high on the side of an alley. We all look up at the art, but no-one comments.
‘You could warn Sullivan,’ says Ids. ‘I mean, I know it’s weird with him being the one who’s trying to kill you and all – but if the dude doesn’t show up, maybe it’d stop the bomb.’
Candy purses her lips and nods. ‘See? You do have ideas. Not good ones, but still.’
‘Very funny.’ Ids looks at me. ‘So . . .?’
‘It’s not like I’ve got Sullivan’s number or anything. I don’t even know what he looks like. Never bothered to find out.’ We walk for a short time in silence. ‘It’s not bad though, Ids.’
Ids flashes his phone. ‘That’s Sullivan.’ The photo shows a beefy, middle-aged, red-faced man with sandy hair smiling from ear to ear. He’s holding the reins of a racehorse in one hand and a trophy in the other. ‘And that’s his horse.’
I look at the bloke who wants me dead.
‘I should have looked him up before now,’ I say.
‘Yeah,’ says Ids. ‘Might’ve been an idea, Sherlock.’ He smiles, punches me lightly on the shoulder. ‘But you’ve had plenty more stuff to think about, bro. Plus, you have a handicap: you is an idiot.’
I laugh. ‘True.’
‘We still can’t get to Sullivan,’ says Candy.
‘Yeah, we can,’ says Ids. ‘We know where he’s gonna be this afternoon, hey? Our boy’s gonna be at the races cheering his pony on.’ Ids points at the image on his phone. He stops walking and places himself in front of us. ‘All we got to do is find him and get him away before the bomb goes off.’
‘All we have to do is find the bomb,’ I says, flatly. ‘In Randwick. On race day. Have you seen the size of that place?’
‘You got any better ideas?’ Ids jerks a thumb over his shoulder. ‘Let’s get to the races. Be all heroic and stuff.’
‘I still can’t believe there’re this many freaks who like horse racing.’ Ids waves a hand at the crowd. ‘This is getting us nowhere.’
The three of us are threading our way through the crowd in front of the main grandstand at Randwick. We snuck in a service entrance since we’re underage, and none of us is exactly going to ask our parents along. Now here we are; three people in a crowd of more than thirty thousand.
‘There’s Sullivan’s horse. Ballymena Boy.’ I say, pointing a finger.
We’re about ten metres back from the fence that separates the spectators from the track. The horses for the big race, The Everest, are being paraded along the grandstand in front of a crush of people taking photos and yelling. Almost all the people here are dressed way nicer than we are. The three of us stick out like bugs on an ice-cream, but no-one seems to care, too busy swilling champagne and yelling encouragement to their favourite horse to pay much attention to three teenagers.
‘I can’t see anyone who looks like him,’ says Candy.
Ballymena Boy is being led by a stable hand, his trainer and a clipboard-carrying racecourse official. Most of the other horses are accompanied by their owners, but there’s no sign of Jonjo Sullivan.
‘He should be out there,’ I say. ‘Which could mean he doesn’t want to be seen. In public, I mean.’
We’ve been wandering around, trying to spot Sullivan, since the gates opened two hours ago, and it’s starting to get me down. ‘How the hell are we gonna find him in all this lot, Ids?’
Ids is facing away from the track. I turn and see he’s scanning the rows of windows fronting the Grandview restaurant.
‘If I’d paid six hundred grand to put my horse in a race, I’d want to see it,’ Ids says. ‘Wouldn’t you?’
‘I guess,’ says Candy. ‘How does that help?’
‘Well, Sullivan ain’t gonna be walking round in this crowd, agreed? So if he does want a good place to watch his pride and joy, I’m guessing he’s got front row seats right up there.’ Ids points at the Grandview windows, which are reflecting a darker version of the blue Sydney sky.
‘Okay,’ I say. A nerve pulses in my neck, just like Fiji’s. I think Ids is on the right track with the restaurant.
That’s where the bomb is. I know it.
A security guard about the size of a steroid-guzzling gorilla, and with a face like a pit bull sucking a lemon, guards the main door as if his life depends on it. Everyone coming in and out wears a plastic ticket on a lanyard round their necks. Huddled behind a concrete pillar, we try and figure out how to get in. It’s not going to be easy, not with the main race about to start. Maybe in the excitement of the finish?
And then it hits me.
‘They’ll time it for the end of the race! It’ll be chaos then. Easier for anyone involved to get away.’
A roar sounds from the racetrack as the horses are led into their starting gates.
‘We haven’t got long,’ I say. ‘Anyone got anything?’ Ids shakes his head. ‘Nothing.’
I look at Candy.
‘As it happens,’ she says, ‘I might have an idea.’
A starting pistol fires and thirty thousand people start cheering as The Everest gets underway. It will take the horses less than two minutes to complete the course.
Two minutes for us to stop the bomb.
Or die trying.
‘C’mon!’ says Candy ‘What else are we going to do?’
‘Do it,’ says Ids.
‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Go!’
Candy slams the point of her elbow through the protective glass sheet covering the fire alarm in the stairwell just below the Grandview restaurant. Instantly a deafening siren wails. The sound is so loud, so intense, that my adrenaline spikes.
‘Holy crap!’ yells Ids, and jams his hands over his ears. I feel the grandstand vibrate under our feet as the horses outside thunder round the track. The rumble of the hooves, the surf roar of the over-excited punters, the wah-wah of the fire alarm all combine in one mind-numbing avalanche of pure noise.
‘Run!’ I yell, and the three of us belt down the stairs two at a time. Behind us people are streaming out of the restaurant. At the foot of the stairs, two security guards urge people out.
‘Keep moving!’ one of them yells at us. ‘Outside!’
Ahead of me, Candy and Ids sprint through a door that opens onto a concrete concourse. Although almost everyone else is concentrating on the race, a few people are beginning to notice the stampede from the main stand. A drunk man tries to fight his way back to his seat.
‘The race!’ yells the man. ‘We can’t miss the race!’ A security guard puts a finger in his face and tells him to keep moving away.
‘This isn’t a drill!’ he shouts. ‘Get out!’
The noise level increases as the horses reach the final hundred metres. The punters nearest the track are completely unaware of the fire alarm in the main stand.
‘This is unreal!’ yells Ids.
‘Let’s keep going,’ I say. ‘Get away from the stand. In case we’re right.’
I take Candy’s hand and we weave through the crowds, away from the grandstand. Then the crowd erupts, drowning out the fire alarm.
The horses are on the final stretch.
Twenty-five metres ahead of us, horses hammer past in a blur of colour. The fire-alarm evacuation has all but merged in with the crowd at the track, the stampede halted by the sheer numbers on the ground. Thousands of people scream at the top of their lungs as three horses race neck and neck towards the finish line. It’s going to be a close thing. I see the green and yellow colours of Sullivan’s horse and then, just as Ballymena Boy sweeps past the post to claim The Everest, the windows of the Grandview restaurant explode outwards in an angry blade of orange flame.
Glass splinters rain down as the blast knocks us off our feet, but we’re just too far away to cop any real damage.
It’s a cliché, but I have the sensation of time standing still. There’s no other way to describe it. Even as we hit the deck, I’m hyper-sensitive to random details in the crowd around me: a woman in a yellow dress near to the stand falling to her knees, a bloom of blood on her left shoulder; the way the shockwave seems to wobble the air; the horses at the finish line rearing up at the sound of the explosion; a dining chair flying through the air.
Incredibly, some of the crowd still seems too caught up in the race to be aware that anything has happened – mingled with the screams of the injured are cheers from people celebrating the win.
‘You okay?’ I stand up, brushing glass fragments from my hair, and haul Candy to her feet. Her right jacket sleeve is ripped but I can’t see any blood. Next to her, Ids pulls himself upright, checking himself for injuries.
‘I think so,’ she says, tears streaming down her face. ‘Jesus! They did it, Raze! They really did it!’
Ids points to my head. ‘You got a cut here,’ he says, and takes a closer look. ‘Seems okay.’
‘I’m fine,’ I say, but I’m not. Not really. None of us are. We don’t know what to do. I don’t think any of us properly believed it was going to happen.
I wipe the blood from my face and we stare back up at the main stand. A thick black cloud of smoke ripples skywards from the gaping hole blown in the centre of Grandview. The first siren sounds in the distance, getting closer.
Despite all we’ve done, despite me telling the others how certain I was that there really was a bomb at Randwick, I’m shocked beyond belief at the reality. Part of me, at least, had needed to believe we were wrong; that all of the mess revolving around me and my family wouldn’t keep growing.
But that ground-rattling explosion just hardens my certainty that this needs to stop. This needs to be stopped.
And then another, illogical, thought crowds in on the first, hits me deep in my gut: did we, somehow, cause this? It doesn’t make sense, but then nothing’s making sense right now.
Candy puts her hand to her mouth and we watch the fat ball of orange flame and black smoke rise lazily from the grandstand. Ids takes a couple of steps towards the blaze then stops, and I realise that Ids and Candy hadn’t really been thinking the thing would go off either. The three of us stand motionless until the crowds begin streaming past in a whirl of screams and panic and we’re jolted into action.
‘Come on,’ says Candy. She pulls me and Ids around and starts heading for the gates. ‘There’s nothing we can do here.’
We move quickly with the crowd, silent. Cops and security race in the opposite direction. Nobody gives three teenagers a second glance. The bomb has taken over.
It takes us over two hours to get back to Corrigan. The bomb has paralysed the city for kilometres in every direction. Traffic is backed up, highways clogged, and we end up walking all the way back, none of us speaking much. We’re a long way from the racecourse, and we can still smell burning.
At one point, Candy starts to search her phone for information on what’s happened, but I stop her. If the news is really bad, I’m not going to make it. This is the Tanic family, I think. We kill people. The cop Hillier had been right: the Tanics are a cancer.
‘Can we leave that for now? Look later?’ I say. Candy seems like she’s about to argue but then puts her phone away.
‘We have to find out sometime, Raze,’ she says. I shrug and carry on walking.
We stop when we reach the turn for Ids’ house.
‘So what now?’ says Ids.
I’m tired. As tired as I can ever remember being. The fingers of my right hand tremble and I stuff them into a pocket. Shock, maybe? I don’t know.
‘I’ll listen to what they’re saying on the news,’ says Candy. ‘It’ll be all over everything. We get together tomorrow and work something out.’
Ids snaps out an ironic salute but no-one smiles. ‘Catch you tomorrow,’ he says. He bumps a fist against Candy’s and pats me on the shoulder like I’m an invalid before walking down the hill and round the corner.
I feel I should say something, should contribute to the discussion, but I don’t. I can’t. There’s nothing left.
Candy’s house looks empty when we get there.
She goes in first to check things out while I wait in the laneway behind the house. After a few minutes I get a text giving me the all-clear. We walk through the kitchen and head upstairs. It feels like – no, it’s a fact – we probably saved a heap of lives, but I can’t shake the feeling that this is the end of the line. How did things get to this point? How did I ignore the realities of Dad’s business for so long?
With no-one else in Candy’s house, I grab a hot shower and then head up to the loft, my senses, as always, on overload until I make it to safety. To sanctuary. I dress in a clean t-shirt and shorts, curl up under the doona and close my eyes. If I never opened them again? Right now that would be just fine with me.
Fifteen minutes later Candy comes in and sits down on the bed. She pulls her laptop onto her knee and I groan.
‘We need to know,’ she says, and I know she’s right. With both our dads up to their slimy, crooked necks in the whole thing, we have to know the aftermath of what happened at Randwick.
And find out if we failed. A thought that makes me want to throw up.
Candy puts the news on low and, as darkness falls outside, we watch the shaky amateur footage of the blast. The graphics scrolling across the bottom of the screen spell out the bald facts of the story: Twenty-three injured during Australia’s most expensive horse race. Police investigating incident as a possible terrorist attack.
There’s no mention of Jonjo Sullivan. No mention of my dad. No-one’s joined any of those dots yet except us. Experts are called to talk about the race, about the injured spectators who were taken to the Prince of Wales Hospital, about explosives, about CCTV footage, about celebrities caught up in the pandemonium, about reactions from around the world. In a surreal moment, a tweet appears from the President of the United States sending – what else? – hopes and prayers. And then there’s an interview with a high-ranking fire officer who tells the interviewer that there would have been a massive death toll if a fire alarm hadn’t happened to go off barely a minute before the blast. The best news comes when a journalist reports confirmation that none of the injuries sustained were severe enough to require intensive care. Candy squeezes my hand and I feel a weight lifted. There are no deaths, no wounds that won’t heal. It’s something. Candy curls up in a ball next to me and we watch the blood-soaked news loop until sleep finally comes.
I’m woken from a dreamless sleep by my phone vibrating against my leg. It’s a message from Candy, who must’ve left after I dropped off.
are u awake? something’s happening. will get up there when I can . . . check it out!
I shrug off the doona and open Candy’s laptop to see the hidden cameras in the Cooper house. There’s activity. I flick up the screen showing Don Cooper’s office and put on my headphones.
‘– play nice. No need for anyone to lose out,’ says my father as I watch him onscreen.
He’s in the house! I think, shrinking back against the wall as if he’s right here in the room with me. After what happened at Randwick, it feels like Satan has put in an appearance.
‘You tried to bomb us, you mongrel!’ barks someone out of shot. Although there’s something familiar about the voice, I don’t recognise the speaker. ‘I can’t believe I’m here. It makes me sick looking at you.’
My dad holds up a hand. ‘I get it. You’re hurting. We’re all hurting. I lost a son, remember? But the fact is that you wouldn’t be here at all if you didn’t think we could work something out. If you didn’t think there was something in this for you. And there is.’
There are four men onscreen and at least five in the room, counting the guy out of shot. My dad sits in an armchair, Don Cooper opposite him. Nicky Latousis – younger and bigger than Dad – in black clothes, and with razor-cut hair and a ton of attitude, leans against Cooper’s desk. Against the back wall is another younger man, packing more weight and staring hard at Latousis.
Suddenly there’s movement beside me. I turn quickly, adrenaline spiking before I see it’s Candy. She raises a hand in greeting and duck-walks under the roof beams towards the mattress.
‘What’s happening?’ she whispers, lifting one of my headphones and taking a seat next to me.
‘So where do we go from here?’ says the offscreen voice. He doesn’t sound impressed.
I tilt the screen towards Candy. ‘There’s your dad, my dad. That guy’s called Nicky Latousis. He works for the family. Don’t know who the fourth guy is. And I haven’t seen the one offscreen yet.’
‘You taping this?’ asks Candy, and I nod.
The meeting in the basement continues. Cooper isn’t saying a lot, but when money comes into the discussion he leans forward.
‘How much?’ says the offscreen voice.
‘Tell him,’ says Dejan Tanic.
‘We think somewhere in the region of two hundred million,’ says Cooper.
The feed goes silent.
Candy and I look at each other, our eyes wide.
‘Did he just say two hundred million?’ whispers Candy.
In the office, the unseen man whistles softly. ‘This Needle deal’s going to make you lads two hundred million?’ The disbelief is clear.
‘No,’ says my father quietly. ‘The two hundred million represents your cut if you play nice.’ He looks directly at the man offscreen. ‘We’re making a lot more.’
The bloke leaning against the wall coughs.
‘You’re kidding,’ says the offscreen voice. A big, thickset man walks into shot and leans on Cooper’s desk, getting right up in his face. His stance recalls a gorilla. He has a fresh bandage across his cheek.
